25 July 2008

Observing Location	CT
Observational Period	1015-1030 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Scattered Clouds Temperature 75° F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 30.13" Hg Steady Feels Like Hot It feels hot when out in the sun and very warm when in the shade. There are lots of clouds that appear to be partially high cirrus mares tales, some stratus sheets beneath them and some cumulus building out of the sheets – a very confused sky. Transparency Good Seeing I
Instruments	Brunton 8x21 compact binocular w/Welco gold shade 14 welder's filter - Charlie
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

Target Sunspots Constellation Cnc Category Solar Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080725.1015 EDT Comments Distance Light Time 1.02 AU 8m 27s Angular Size 31' 32.7" Altitude 48.8° Heliographic Latitude (B0) 5.31° Heliographic Longitude (L0) 113.74° Parallactic Angle (P) 8.33° Carrington rotation number (CR) 2072 Nothing Seen There is nothing visible in the SOHO images and only one pore on each side of the Sun in Active Region Explorer.   Groups Spots R North 0 0 0 South 0 0 0 Total 0 0 0 R = (Groups * 10) + Spots)

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Observing Location	PKR
Observational Period	0945-1000 EDT
Atmospheric Conditions	Cloud Cover Clear Temperature 79° F Wind Calm Humidity Moderate Barometric Pressure 30.06" Hg Steady Feels Like Mild There is a horizontal stripe of cloud (not dissipating contrail) just above the opposing apartment buildings. The humidity doesn’t feel as high as the numbers indicate. Initially I estimated transparency as excellent but downgraded that to good after I started observing. There didin’t appear to be any variation in the air. Transparency Good Seeing I
Instruments	SAR: Coulter CT-100 Newtonian reflector - Charlie CelEDTron Omni 20mm (21x) CelEDTron Omni 2x Barlow I should have brought a binocular with me to help me to locate the stars that I wasn’t able to see naked eye and could not see enough of in the reduced FoV of the scope.
Observing Party	Charlie Ridgway

2019 EDT	Sunset Civil Twilight begins
1050 EDT	Civil Twilight ends Nautical Twilight begins
2055 EDT	It was dark enough that Antares was observed scintillating

Target Jupiter Constellation Sgr Category Planet Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080725.2120 EDT Comments Object Class Classical Planet Elongation 161.9° E Distance Light Time (from Earth) 4.20 AU 34m 54s Distance (from Sun) 5.17 AU Angular Size 46.9" x 43.9" Magnitude -2.7 Central Meridian I/II 58°/283° Altitude 18.6° Moons Starry Night Starter graphic Starry Night Starter graphic Jupiter is nicely framed by a triangle of stars that are fainter than the moons. Cartes du Ciel graphic (SAR orientation) The coma in SAR is bad. The top of Jupiter is salmon and the botton turquoise. Even an untrained observed commented on it unprompted. There is a ghost image of the planet to the lower right. Later in the evening, at high power I detected banding off the western limb. Ganymede is out to the west of the planet by about 1.5 planet diameters and is by itself. Io is about a planet diameter away from Jupiter to the east followed by Europa about 1.5 diameters more distant and lastly Calisto on the end of the line another 2 diameters farther east. By 2240 EDT Io had moved closer to Calisto – almost the reverse spatial relationship between Jupiter, Io and Calisto as what was initially observed.

2129 EDT	Nautical Twilight ends Astronomical Twilight begins

Target M4, Cat’s Eye Cluster, NGC 6121 Constellation Sco Category DSO: GCl Time yyyymmdd.hhmm 20080726.2140 EDT Comments I can see a faint spot of gray light where the cluster should be. It appears to be bigger than a star but is fairly sharpely resolved – as sharply as the coma of SAR will allow. It is possible that the coma is making it appear larger than it should be, but that is not the case with nearby stars so I think I was seeing the cluster. Planetarium shows one Mag 8.08 star nearby that I did not know about (I forgot to bring the Palm and was dealing only with the Pocket Star Atlas). The cluster is Mag 5.9 but that is spread over 26.3’ ov arc. I am not sure what that does to the relative brightness of the two objects, but still think I was seeing the cluster. Starry Night Starter graphic

2213 EDT	Astronomical Twilight ends
2345 EDT	Jupiter transits
2349 EDT	Moon rises

I tried hopping to some of the clusters in Sco and Sgr without luck. Sco is too low on the horizon and the good stuff is behind the apartment buildings. Without Planetarium I wasn’t able to figure out where Jupiter was in Sgr, although it was where I thought it was, and wasn’t seeing enough stars to be sure of my hop through the constellation up to the cover of the teapot. Also every time I would get somewhere and go to the atlas to try and figure out what I was seeing someone would come up and I would end up back on Jupiter.

There were ISS visible passes at 2126 and 2302 EDT but both were too low on the horizon to be seen from here and were only Mag 1.1.

There was a Mag -7 Iridium flare at 2325 EDT and a Mag -1 at 2332 EDT but I didn’t think to look at my pass listings when I got home and missed both of them.

I stopped along the oval to just look and think I might have seen a meteorite streaking across the sky from near Deneb to near Altair. Planetarium does not indicate any active meteor streams in that area now. It also might have been a moth catching area lights under its wings.